by Paul Usiskin
With his promotion came new responsibilities, one of them reviewing prisoner affairs, Palestinians held by Israel. A week into his new role a woman came to see him. Her pallor matched the winter rain clouds. She looked down throughout the meeting, unable or unwilling to meet his eyes. He had to ask her to repeat what she was saying, she spoke so softly. She was clearly intimidated by authority and that stemmed from seven months in an Israeli prison. What she had come to say was very sparse. She’d been in a solitary confinement cell. Her sole reason for meeting Hisham, three days after her release, was that she’d heard someone screaming every day in her block. The names she heard haunted her.
Hisham thanked this whisper of a woman and wrote notes. Though the Chief still line-managed him, he reported directly to the Prisoner Affairs Minister, so Hisham called him.
Another day passed. At the offices of an Israeli human rights Not-For-Profit in Jerusalem, a lawyer, Yehudit Almagor, took a call. A voice speaking in good English said, ‘I have a report about a Palestinian Israeli woman being held in solitary confinement. There’s no record of her being there, but there’s a witness who’s heard the woman calling out two names. Will you write down the details?’ After he’d given her the names, the lawyer asked for the caller’s name, but Khalil ended the call. Yehudit was used to anonymous callers with vital information. Moments after she’d finished the call, Yehudit, known to everyone as Ditta, called the Justice Ministry demanding to speak with Dov Chizzik urgently. She’d known Lana al Batuf since their university days.
33
No woman had ever slapped Dov before. Lana did after she was escorted to the prison governor’s office, still damp from her first proper shower with soap and shampoo, dressed in clothes Dov had brought from her apartment. They were alone and he didn’t know what to say or do.
Lana had never slapped anyone before. After it she broke down and Dov held her as she sobbed endlessly, ‘Find him Dov. Do what you have to and find Yakub.’
Aviel Weiss had never beaten up a suspect before. In his career in the police force, he’d come close to this thick red line once or twice and but hadn’t crossed it.
Aviv Glazer stood naked, his wrists and ankles zip-tied, a black hood over his head, a white plastic chair and a wooden table behind him. Aviel stood silently next to him waiting for Glazer to sense his presence. When he did, he asked, ‘Why am I here?
Aviel pulled him back onto the chair and removed the hood. ‘DNA links you to the kidnaps of a woman and her child.’
Glazer looked for all the world like a cab driver taking a break, bored and put-upon, and said carelessly, ‘DNA can always be corrupted, there’s been many cases of cross-contamination in DNA testing.’ Then he spat less negligently at Aviel.
‘Thanks for that,’ Aviel said, pulling a tissue from one trouser pocket, wiping his face and putting the tissue into a ziplock from his other pocket. ‘It’ll help with final DNA confirmation evidence for your trial. Spitting’s so crude, in your case reckless.’
Glazer was the quintessential wet ops man, washed-out eyes, a nose once broken, forehead pocked after shrapnel from a very close grenade explosion that miraculously hadn’t blown parts of his face off; he thought he lived a charmed life.
He was charmless and by the time Aviel lost it with him, Glazer’s nose was broken again on the table top after Aviel banged it down twice, his left cheek gashed to the bone when Aviel hit him across his face with the chair. He was unconscious when the paramedics removed him from the interview suite, blood clotting under his nose. For what? Aviel asked himself.
Glazer admitted he’d burned the van that had carried Yakub, nothing more, not where, no hint, it wasn’t important. ‘What the fuck?’ he’d asked. ‘They’re trash, that Palestinian woman and her bastard son. Fuck her, but do it properly, she looked like it would be fun, for me, and dump her body and the kid’s in one of those cemeteries, you know the ones, but no numbers cos no one’s going to want to exchange their bones.’
That was when Aviel hit him with the chair. Lucky for Glazer the chair was plastic. The table was plain wood and Glazer’s blood stained it when Aviel banged his head on it. Lucky for Aviel that Amos was in the observation room. He stopped the camera, deleted the recording, removed the SD card and replaced it with a fresh one, ready to say the camera malfunctioned. Aviel’s chances at Police Commissioner had been challenged once, and in Amos’ view that was enough.
It was totally out of character. He knew he’d have to deal with his conscience and find a way to live with himself. Two men he admired, one of whom he idolized, had broken all barriers of law and discipline and he’d actively assisted in a cover up; he risked his own career and had no idea how to manage the questions his actions must produce. This was not the PID he’d envisaged, it was something else, Dov was someone else, Aviel too. Why can’t we get back to investigating bad cops? He sat in the observation room alone. Not just cover ups, clean ups; where’s that mop? Aviel had walked mutely passed him. Maybe it would be smart to consider another career path and as fast as possible. He opened his iPad and began randomly searching for jobs in faraway places.
‘Why is it left to us wives to do the washing?’ Rachel wondered aloud as she went through her husband’s combats. She knew what her man did, though he never discussed his Sayeret Matkal operations. But she knew, the news headlined the release of the young Palestinians. Her fighter had come back late that night wrung out and shaken. He’d moaned a lot in his sleep, an awful dream, and repeated, ‘They were ours,’ before she shook him momentarily awake, stroked his forehead until he drifted quietly off. Nothing in any of the tunic pockets. She stuffed it into the washing machine with his socks and underwear and started on the trousers and in one patch pocket found an unlikely object.
*
Since their chance meeting at the cemetery something had changed in Dov’s feelings for Orli. He couldn’t help it. There were too many hints, in words and facial expressions, in her eyes, in her obvious pleasure at seeing and speaking with him, for him not to think that there was something deeper between them. He asked himself more than once if he wasn’t over-imagining. That wasn’t in his nature. He dealt in facts, hard evidence, and his profound understanding of the human psyche. Once or twice he’d heard that little voice in his head telling him that he was responding to the shocking loss of Liora, and trying to overcome his inability to find a long term relationship with another woman. Somehow he put Lana into a separate category, unsure how he’d introduce her and Yakub to Orli. What he was doing was manufacturing a relationship with Orli, the little voice warned him, making her that new woman in his life, permanently. And perhaps, said that little voice, that isn’t where Orli’s at. Ridiculous, Dov insisted. See that look in her eyes. He started sending YouTube’s of music he liked, Paganini, Bach, Ellington, Cream, Sinatra, Chava Alberstein. When they spoke about them, it was clear she was caught up in his enthusiasm. She too loved music.
*
The flight to Tartu in southern Estonia had taken just over three and a half hours, flown in a government Gulfstream.
Yosef Hassid raised eyebrows when Dov told him where he was going; they became a deep frown when Dov said the Man had Okayed it.
‘What do you need me for then?’ Hassid had asked balefully. Democracy had forced controlled chaos; the Man had been returned to office with a reduced majority and new coalition partners, two of whom had formed their own ‘pact of the brothers’ to stymie the Man whenever they could. Ministerial portfolios were redistributed after the shortest coalition negotiations in the country’s history. Justice had gone to a woman. Hassid was readying to vacate his inner sanctum. Desk drawers were cleared, there were half empty shelves, stack boxes filled with Talmud volumes and legal tomes, photos and paintings packed away, faded marks on the walls where their frames had been.
‘You’re still my boss, so I’m updating you on the final phase of Trigon.’
�
��Boss? The individual hasn’t been born who could manage you Dov Chizzik! No matter, you always produce results, not necessarily those that everyone wants, but like it or not you’re part of the machine that ensures justice for this nation, and justice is never perfect. The new Minister is a remarkable woman, I’ve no idea how the two of you will get on, so in the interim enjoy the luxury of executive jet travel and don’t drink too much bourbon.’
Did everyone in the Ministry know about the Cure Bar? Dov wanted to shout.
Hassid became more amiable than Dov had ever known him. Relinquishing power was having a sanguine effect. ‘So even though you’re over there, what, for a day or so, you’ll find food familiar, Estonian versions of Litvak fish and meat dishes you probably grew up with, except for pork of course.’ He gave Dov a knowing look. ‘The Baltics were as bad as the rest when it came to the Shoah,’ he went on lugubriously, ‘though the Estonians were the most tolerant before the Nazis arrived and didn’t go along with anti-Semitism and discriminatory laws. Didn’t stop Estonians with Nazi sympathies taking a hands on approach to killing Jews.’
‘I’ve not had time to brush up on the background, so thanks for the pointers.’
‘Ever thought of a different career path?’ Hassid asked, his eyes staying on Dov’s.
‘Not really, why?’
‘Oh, it’s just that if you don’t find a happy modus operandi with the new Minister, you might try the State Comptroller’s office. They’re always looking for good investigators. After all, it’s what you really are isn’t it? It’s what’s taking you off to Estonia. I don’t think any previous head of PID has been so active in the field.’
‘You’re right of course, I’ve probably taken the ‘I’ in Police Investigations Department too seriously.’
‘Yes. Talking of the State Comptroller reminds me. You spoke to Eli Barzel?’
Hassid’s long pause reminded Dov of those pregnant verdict scenes in American TV legal dramas. During it he wondered what was behind the alternative job suggestion. And he hadn’t called Barzel. ‘No, not yet.’
‘Brenner appears to have died from natural causes.’
The next pause suggested that Dov might want to ask about ‘appears’, but he shook Hassid’s hand, said, ‘I’ll stay in touch,’ and left.
That Friday morning before dawn, in the short drive to the Sde Dov airport, Dov’s little voice with its ‘Yakub!’ tinnitus got louder and wouldn’t stop.
He’d reeled off his reasons to the Man before asking for a government plane. He’d justified Hareven’s arrest with, ‘Attempting to subvert democracy by challenging the authority of the government of the day.’
The Man had agreed, and Dov had smiled to himself as he left, at such gullibility. Politicians love grandiosity and Dov was sure ‘subverting democracy’ had impressed him, even if Dov had misappropriated its legality, actually invented it.
He didn’t entirely ignore jet-set extravagance, sampling the in-flight breakfast, noting the substitution of Israeli smoked turkey for bacon with the eggs benedict. ‘As long as it’s got something smoked in it I’m happy,’ he told the stewardess.
He’d scanned Sophia’s original cryptic poem into his iPad and decided to explore it once more in case he’d missed something. Knowing she was going to die, was she pointing at Hareven as her murderer?
“What’s in a name?
My first is a land that is mother’s or home.
The second is a mountain all made of stone.
Who am I? And who is he? …
‘Sorry’ the last word should really be.
Sorry too about Mint Tea.
But it isn’t. It’s goodbye.”
The first ‘sorry’ was for being the bait, the honey in Hareven’s trap; it was definitely his. ‘Who am I? And who is he?’ pointed straight at Hareven, ‘a mountain all made of stone.’ But the ‘goodbye’ was sorrowful, as if she may have begun to like him, or more than that. It wasn’t hard for him of all people to imagine that something more than a continuous, wild exchange of bodily fluids might have developed.
The second ‘sorry’ said she’d known about Mint Tea and her disappearance. Her own death and Mint Tea’s disappearance, said that left alive, they’d both posed threats, major or minor, to the unseen man at the heart of the Israeli sex industry, so Hareven had erased them.
Call it the unlikely but not unheard of love between a policeman and a whore, Dov felt he owed it to her memory to visit her birth place. That too defied logic. She’d been instrumental in ending his police career. What the fuck?
Fuck was wholly the appropriate word. It had been obsessive. Could intimate include emotion? If so then he was guilty of being emotional about her. But it was qualified by his greater obsession, to find Yakub, with maybe a blade of grass of an idea that in learning more about Sara-Sophia, he’d glean what he needed about Hareven to finish him off.
It was mid-morning when the Gulfstream landed at Ulenurme airport, Tartu, south-east Estonia. As they turned for final approach, Dov saw the gray strip of runway. Cleared of overnight snow it stood out in otherwise white garbed terrain with thick forests on its western edge. The small jet was directed to an isolated stand on the other side of the apron to the one-story blue and white building that was the airport terminal and control tower. Next to the stand were two APCs, a jeep and a Volvo hi-ride estate.
The stewardess handed him his coat, his father’s dark green army style greatcoat, two rows of five big black buttons down the front and pleated at the back. ‘Very imperial,’ Amos had said enviously when Dov had worn it to the Ministry during the snow. The previous day he’d made a fuss about it needing to be refreshed and had it dry-cleaned, ‘Sorry Dov I almost forgot it,’ as he handed it to him at the airport. Dov had also found a fur hat with earflaps tied on the top and his grandfather’s initials sewn into the lining, kept, typically idiosyncratically, in a round panettone tin. He’d packed leather gloves and a long scarf, his army boots and extra socks and long johns and a thermal t-shirt, and changed into them before landing.
As the stewardess unlocked the cabin door she told him, ‘This is the coldest time of the year here. It’s minus eight and dropping,’ she gave him a sympathetic look, ‘more snow’s forecast tonight. Have a good trip.’
Dov stood momentarily at the top of the steps as a vicious icy blast of wind whipped at him. A line of armed Estonian Defense Force troops marched up to the steps and stood to attention.
His eyes teared a little as he went down, but he carried his leather gloves and hat in one hand, his coat unbuttoned and his scarf loose round his neck, what’s an icy wind to a man like me?
There were two officials standing apart from the troops, one from the Estonian Foreign Ministry and the other from the Israeli Consulate in the capital, Tallinn. The Estonian official introduced himself and said, ‘Shalom Mr Chizzik. Welcome to Estonia.’ He looked pleased with himself for using the Hebrew greeting. Dov didn’t tell him it also meant goodbye.
‘I hope your stay in our country will be of benefit. Anything you need please call me, here’s my card.’
He gestured to the soldiers, ‘We will guard your plane while you are in Valga, and your crew will be our guests in Tartu.’ He shook Dov’s hand warmly and walked away, relieving him of the thought he’d have to inspect an honor guard.
The Israeli was Ami Wolf. He ushered him into the dark blue Volvo 4WD, waving at the stewardess at the top of the steps. He saw Dov noting the lack of CD plates.
‘I borrowed it from a friend in Tartu, on advice. Foreign Ministry Security in Jerusalem said we should avoid using a consular vehicle and hiring wasn’t a good idea either.’
‘I understand,’ Dov said. ‘You’ve had it swept for bugs of course.’
‘Of course,’ said Wolf. Dov took off his coat as Wolf started the engine, recirculating the heated air.
‘It’s a se
venty-minute drive to Valga, depending on the state of roads. I’ll brief you as we drive and if you’re peckish I’ve got a flask of tea and some sandwiches, in the bag on the floor.’
‘Thanks. Tell me about yourself first.’
They crossed a railway line, the SatNav burbling away in Estonian, and turned onto a main road, the E264 signposted for Tartu-Valga. Wolf gave him a quick bio. He was single, born and went to school in Jerusalem, served in the Golani Brigade, got an International Relations degree from the Hebrew University. His parents were born in Tallinn, Estonia’s capital, and as children they were sent to Sweden and then to the US before 1939 and made aliyah.
‘Estonia’s a small country. Their language is Finnish influenced. They’re in a hurry to shed their Soviet past, though like in Latvia, a good percentage of Russians had opted to remain after independence in 1991, nearly twenty five percent here and twenty-six there. Estonia joined the EU in 2004. But, they have a long way to go to modernize and recover from the Soviet era domination and the economic ruin that was left behind. It’s a very twenty-first century country in one way, investing heavily in an IT infrastructure and being one of the most computer oriented countries in Europe.’
‘So I could have asked my questions via Google?’
Wolf’s face tensed from the unknown nature of Dov’s visit, mixed with alarm that he may have mis-spoken.
‘No, no, I didn’t mean it that way. You’re the head of PID, here with official sanction at the highest levels. I’m just a consular staffer ready to help in any way I can. It’s entirely up to you what you share with me about the purpose of your visit.’
Dov pondered a reply along the lines of ‘It’s personal, but it’s business,’ but didn’t say it.